Wake Me Up
by GhostNappaTime
Summary: One night of drunken indiscretion can lead to a lifetime of consequence. Haruno Sakura has just discovered that the hard way and now she has to devise a plan to deal with her problem before anyone can find out the truth of that consequence. She'll quickly learn that this is easier said than done. Rated M for language violence and sexual content. Edited and fixed. Reread if you want
1. An Inconvenient Series of Truths

_A/N: My very first attempt at a fanfic so I'm sorry for any grammatical errors that I might have missed. This is a Kisame and Sakura story (obviously lol) and I hope you enjoy. Reviews are ALWAYS welcome, even flames. Enjoy._

_A/N 2: Okie dokes, I have edited this and the second chapter in order to change the POV for Sakura. The whole first person thing was bothering me so I decided to fix it. The entire story is set in third person now, more flavor I think, and it flows a lot better this way. It took me like two hours to go through it with spell check and manual check in order to fix it so I hope you like it better this way too. As always, reviews are VERY WELCOME. I was a bit thrown to see so many followers and favs and even the amount of traffic this has gotten so far and then to only see two reviews was kind of disheartening. I love feedback so I'd love any and all you'd like to give me. Anyways, thanks all for reading and I'm sorry for the change._

**Chapter One**

An Inconvenient Series of Truths

...

_Congratulations on the mess you made of things;_  
_On trying to reconstruct the air and all that brings._

_An oxidation is the compromise you own;_  
_But this is beginning to feel like the dog wants a bone._

_You force your fire and then you falsify your deeds;_  
_Your methods dot the disconnect from all your creeds._

_And fortune strives to fill the vacuum that it feeds;_  
_But this is beginning to feel like the dog's lost the lead._

...

**Sakura**

...

She couldn't believe it. Her eyes began to blur so she blinked, hoping she could clear them and maybe it would just disappear, but there it was, all in plain sight. An unbelievably plain sight. Her hands began to tremble and her stomach twisted in knots so severe that vomiting seemed too close by.

How could this have happened? How could she have let it happen?

The shame that she felt for failing to keep chakra regulation on her hormones was almost enough to overshadow the sheer horror that was this situation. Almost. She carefully placed the little stick down on the sink and slid against the wall, resting her head against the tiles. The same questions kept running through her mind at top speed and she could feel the dull throb begin to form behind her eyelids.

How was she going to deal with this? What would she tell her friends? What would she tell Tsunade?

She let her gaze fall back on the ominous plastic sitting an inch from her head and a fresh wave of nausea took over. She barely had time to grab the rim of the toilet when everything she had for breakfast - which was not much - splattered the bowl. When it seemed as if her stomach had given all it had to give, she barely had any strength to move back to the sink.

It was over, her entire life as a shinobi was over with one little symbol on a stick drenched in pee.

"What am I going to do?" she asked no one, but she knew she had to come up with an answer fast. Her career, her life depended on the decision she needed to make right then and there, even though her only real option had been clear from the start.

She had to get rid of it.

A new resolve forced her off of that floor and out the door of her apartment with a speed she hadn't thought possible. She only had two options at that moment and neither was appealing. She needed to talk to Tsunade but she just couldn't find it in her to face her, the disappointment she'd receive and explanations she'd have to give were too much. She was ashamed of herself enough; she didn't need it from other ends too.

This whole ordeal brought back memories that she had worked so hard to leave behind the past few months and her eyes began to water at the thought of the night that had caused all of this. Suddenly the sun seemed too bright, the outside world too much. She was so set on leaving the house to carry out a plan to fix this and now all she wanted to do was run back home to crawl in bed and hide. Ten feet from the door and she buckled under the weight of it all, racing back upstairs and locking every lock on her front door behind her.

At least she made it to the bed before the tears came, because she was sure that if she had been anywhere else, her legs would have let her. Memories that just a few hours ago had seemed like an unreal dream tore her down until she was the sure that they were the only things that were real.

_**Two months ago, Amegakure**_

_The past week and a half of the undercover solo mission she had been sent on to gather intel on the rumors of potential homeland threats had amounted to nothing more than dying her hair black and sitting in various bars and nightclubs eavesdropping from a booth. If there was a medal awarded to the shinobi with the most useless information in her arsenal, she would have already won it. Everything from marital problems, to ponzi schemes to the best way to keep a long haired dog from getting tangles was unknowingly divested to her. It would have been different if she had been in some civilian bar, most of the ones she had frequented from dusk till dawn, under the guise of a girl who loved to par-tay, had mostly shinobi clientele. It was almost as if they knew she was listening, all talk of the shinobi world had ceased and thus began trivial chit chat. After week one she had been more than irritated, the desire to run up to one of them and use force to get what she needed surfaced more than once. Considering she was in unknown territory, that option would have gotten her killed in some way or the other, so she had to refrain but the urge had been there. Halfway through that week she decided that maybe if she got more involved in the clubbing atmosphere she might be able to hear something of worth. She started dancing. She caught the tiniest hints of an upcoming shinobi disturbance from men who would have rather discussed how much better her clothes would look on their floor than work. Eventually she got tired of the groping and the leering looks and this led her to the bar, where she got nothing at all._

_Two weeks in found her at the hottest dance club in Ame's lower district, sitting at the bar wishing she had brought pair of sunglasses to deflect the violent strobe lights on the dance floor. Every time the bartender would make a round, she'd have a cranberry juice, although she needed a drink desperately. She wiggled her hands into her way-too-tight jeans and pulled out her cell phone, noting with no surprise that it was nearing two thirty in the morning and that her night was looking no more prosperous than the last. She had gotten up to leave when she saw him come in._

_Compared to the various shiny shirted morons she had been mingling with every night he looked unusually dim. He was tall, so tall it almost made the huge club look small and broader than most men she had ever met, so he made an impression. Though he was dressed in a way that clearly said he didn't want to be noticed, a black hooded jacket, black jeans and black gloves on his hands kind of screamed "look at me", at least to her. No one else seemed to notice the dark stranger in their otherwise colorful midst, so either they were all terrible at their jobs or they just didn't care to pay attention to something other than dancing and the opposite sex. His hood covered nearly his entire face, so all she could see when he sat a few seats from her was the strict line of his mouth and his sharply angled chin. It was too dark to really see much anyway, so she supposed it didn't matter. The strobe lights only did so much. He was clearly maintaining his chakra level so well that it was as if he had none, so she knew he was indeed a shinobi. Unlike her, he apparently didn't see any problem with imbibing because he ordered four shots of sake and sucked them down faster than her eye could follow. She watched as his head tilted towards her and she tried to look away fast enough to avoid being caught gawking at his sheer tenacity to drink like a fish. Unfortunately he was faster than she was and she froze, his eyes catching hers. It was so unusual, she couldn't see them but she could feel them holding her in place, when he finally looked back down she felt like she was going to have a heart attack. She couldn't explain it, but she had been caught like a deer in headlights, drawn to something darker and more promising than the idiots in this club. He had information she wanted, he surely had to, and there was something about his aura that even suppressing chakra couldn't stop. She ordered another juice and began to work out a plan on how to approach him. Any kunoichi would have used the typical seduction routine but for some reason she didn't think that would even work. Sure he was obviously a man but he was clearly a man who had the skill and knowledge to recognize such an assault. Maybe if he had a few more drinks in him..._

_She watched discreetly as he tipped back two more shots like they were water and narrowed her eyes at her own drink. More than ever, with the anxiety of completing this mission nipping at her heels, she wished she could have this stranger's tenacity. Well...maybe just one would be okay; she knew she could handle at least one. Hell, she could handle two if she wanted and still be just fine. Curiously, she peered up from under her lashes to find his head pointed in her direction, he seemed to be watching her too. Maybe this could be the icebreaker she needed._

_Quietly, slyly, she slid across the empty bar stool, pouted her lips and proceeded to play it cool._

_"What are you drinking?" She found she didn't have to speak as loudly as she had thought. That was a good start, just a simple, curious, safe question._

_"Why? Tired of fruit juice?" His voice was deep, but she had expected that. What she hadn't counted on was the way that the resonant rumble would spread through the bar itself and travel up her arm, manifesting itself in the hairs on her neck. She supposed he meant it as a joke but his voice was humorless, and she couldn't see his face._

_"I'm not really much of a drinker." She didn't know what else to add to that that wouldn't make her look like a complete idiot. He didn't speak, but when two more shots appeared in front of him, he slid one to her and she was grateful. Any shinobi of any worth would think it stupid to take a drink from a complete stranger who was clearly a shady sort, but she watched the bartender pour it and she would have seen if this guy had spiked her drink. She needed this simple thing to open him up and she would have to use it. She took her shot just as smoothly as he did, at the same time, and too late did she realize her mistake. She should have made a bit of a show of it, considering she had just said she didn't drink much. If he noticed though, he made no indication and slid yet another in front of her. Her eyes widened slightly._

_"Trying to get me drunk?"_

_His mouth - or at least what part of it she could see - crooked up in the corner just the slightest, something akin to a smirk and the effect it had on her was undesirable._

_"You don't have to drink it."_

_"Well," Though she knew better, knew it was a bad idea to allow herself even a minute bit of disadvantage in this man's presence, though she already knew she was outmatched, knew from the beginning. Abandoning her caution completely she picked the small glass up, tipped it back even faster than the first and smiled slyly, "That would just be rude."_

...

Her head was slamming against her skull with bone shattering force and as she roused she wondered when she had fallen asleep in the first place. It was only a few seconds later did she remember why she was still in bed at two in the afternoon when she was supposed to have been at work six hours ago and she pulled her blankets over her head, shutting out the sun. It didn't matter, she hadn't gone into work yesterday either. She was doing an awful job of pretending that nothing was wrong with her, so she could effectively silence this problem without alerting anyone to her...condition, but she just couldn't find the strength to face the world since she made her unfortunate discovery. How exactly was she supposed to take care of this if she couldn't even seek out a medical professional to assist her because every medical professional she knew was either a coworker or a close friend?

Or...herself?

She sat up with a start as a surge of anxiety pierced her gut and she suddenly felt sick again. She wondered briefly if it was nerves or if perhaps she was experiencing morning sickness. She guessed it didn't really matter as she was about to spend another morning wrapped around the toilet bowl. She raced to the bathroom as fast as her exhausted body could carry her and practically threw herself onto the floor, dry heaving and gagging on virtually nothing but stomach acid and bile. The bitter taste brought on yet more heaving and tears and sweat clung to her hair, effectively gluing it to her face. There wasn't even anything to throw up and she couldn't even use her chakra to alleviate the pain or the nausea, as it was as out of control as her hormones were. She knew she wouldn't be able to work in this condition - if she decided to ever leave the house again - but she couldn't even find the nerve to call in sick. After it was over she laid across the seat, weakly clutching to it as if it were the only thing tethering her to life. She was weak, she was becoming malnourished and she couldn't eat or even drink; everything she consumed made its way back up, even water was too strong for her newly sensitive stomach to handle.

It was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous and she knew it. She hadn't been able to keep anything down for a week and contributing to her own ill-health and yet here she was still locked up in her apartment like she had the plague. It was not as if her friends and teammates would disown her for being pregnant, so what had her acting like this?

With a silent sob she realized the answer was something her entire country would disown her for. It wasn't the fact that she went out, got ridiculously drunk, had sex with a man she didn't know, failed to use proper protection and got knocked up that would get her tried for treason and possibly exiled from her village. No, it was the fact that she went out, got ridiculously drunk, had sex with a man she didn't know, failed to use proper protection and got knocked up by her enemy that was going to get her tried for treason and exiled.

...

**_The Next Morning, Amegakure_**

_She awoke in quite a state, the fuzziness of sleep still looming mixed with what was sure to be an awful hangover left her both sick and irritated. The first thing she registered was her current lack of clothing and that it was terribly cold and drafty in her inn room. Head pounding and stomach churning, she located the nearest piece of fabric and wrapped herself in it before dragging herself out of bed and towards the window to close it. After stepping on several articles of clothing strewn across the floor (surely she hadn't left the room that messy...) and nearly tripping over a small end table that she didn't remember being there before her eyes finally adjusted to the moonlit room. When she made it to the window (she could have sworn that it was on the other side of the room...) she got a good look at her current surroundings._

_This was not her inn room. That much was becoming painfully obvious, and those weren't all of her clothes on the floor and that was not her night table._

_'God...what happened last night?'_

_She remembered meeting a man and she remembered drinking. She could remember talking and laughing. Her intention had been to sauce him up a bit and squeeze some information out of him for the mission but something got her sidetracked and she must have just let go. She narrowed her eyes, squinting in the dark, the chill of the air from the window not even registering anymore as she spotted him, wrapped in a dark colored sheet, just as naked as she and very much asleep._

_A feeling of unusually cold numbness seeped into her as she let her mind take in the features of the man who she had apparently given herself to just a few hours prior. His sharply chiseled face was tense, even in inebriated sleep and it made his jaw look all the more angular. His eyes were very dark, as if the rims had been outlined in kohl and smudged; his nose was sharp, the bridge only slightly crooked probably from where it had been broken and re-set once or twice. There were dark etchings on his cheeks, like stretched checkmarks, and could have been tattoos, but they were unlike any tattoos she had seen. Her eyebrows furrowed deeply as she let her eyes travel down his chest to see the exact same markings below his collarbone, only much larger. She spotted the same on his one exposed shoulder and noted that they very closely resembled a set of fish gills. He was very well defined and muscular, long legs stretching over the end of the queen size bed. His hair was as dark as the pillow case but she could see a decent amount of stubble on his jaw, his hair was an almost black shade of blue and his skin..._

_He had an unusual skin color, bluish, but perhaps that was just the moonlight. She looked down at her arm to see if it looked blue too. It didn't._

_His skin...was blue._

_How that was the last thing she noticed was simply baffling to her until she realized that it was indeed the very first thing she noticed and she had put it to the back because she had been so shocked. How could a man so unusual be suddenly so very familiar? A man with blue skin..._

_A man who had blue skin and gill markings and angular features and..._

_..Sharp teeth..._

_...who carried a sentient sword that ate people and who was surely more monster than man._

_He was even named for it, the demon shark that had twisted him from a possible human being into an awful, terrible, bloodthirsty killing machine who took the utmost pleasure in torturing and skewering his victims until there were no identifiable remains left. She had seen his face in the bingo book, along with a file she was made to read when doing research on the Akatsuki, complete with various pictures of his violent deeds and the messes he had made. They had never met, she had never seen him in the flesh on the battlefield but she knew his work too well._

_"Hoshigaki Kisame..."_

_The whisper was as silent as it was loud in its terror and repulsion. She had just slept with one of the most renowned, most purely evil criminals known to the shinobi nations. She had allowed a...a monster to be inside of her, to spill his demon seed into her in an act that should have been shared between two people who cared for each other, or even just two individuals of the same species! Nausea hit her full force but she couldn't bring herself to move from that spot with fear that she would wake him and he would see what they had done and he would certainly rip her limb from limb and parade in her blood. She forced down the acid threatening to fill her mouth and looked down at the garment she was wrapped in. A thick, black cloak adorned with bright crimson clouds, the very symbol that she had been taught to hate and fear and fight against for her country and her best friend, was now shielding her naked body from the cold. She dropped it as if the innocent cloth had come alive and burned her, leaving her naked once more. Slowly she crept over it, dropped to her knees and crawled around the floor as silently as possible, feeling for her clothes, intent on making the window escape of shame as soon as she was dressed enough. She found her jeans, and slid them on, not even attempting to worry about something as silly as undergarments and found her tank top, with an awful tear through the front as if he had ripped it off of her. Luckily her jacket was close by so she made due with that instead, wincing as she slid the zipper up the track. She didn't have time to realize how sore and exhausted she really was and didn't want to think about what that monster had done to her body. When she decided she was covered up well enough she slid through the window and outside, running as fast as she could intent to get away as far as she could._

...

By the time she realized what she had just done, what...they...had done she put as much distance between that herself and that city as possible. She returned home, her mission was done as far as she could see, and decided that she would never speak of that horrible night to anyone ever. At first it was hard and she was hit with an onslaught of depression and shame and as time went on she began to remember more and more of what happened that night, how differently it had actually happened and how she told herself it must have happened. She remembered when he tore her shirt, but she remember that she had practically begged him to. She remembered that she was the one who came on to him and she even vaguely recall that he tried to stop her. He didn't rape her; they were both just very drunk and poor judgment combined with loneliness on her part led to an awful mistake. It was rough and it was dirty, but she had - at that very moment at least - wanted him, for whatever reason. She had tried to reason with herself, to make herself out to be some kind of victim, so she could feel the tiniest bit justified for her actions, that she had allowed a...monster to touch her. She realized that she was being unfair; he was a monster, very much so, and evil and cruel in all of the ways a person could be. He was a monster because of the things he had done though, not because of his appearance. She wasn't even really taking that into account, so fixated on his surface that she didn't realize that surely what was underneath was far worse. She couldn't remember if at any time during their interaction she recalled who he was, but she should have been more careful. She should have been more aware of what she was doing. She should have never allowed herself to get drunk in the presence of a person who had sent warning bells off in her head the second she laid eyes on him in the first place. For all of her reasoning, for all of her careless nature when she should have been the most careful, she was just as much to blame as he was, even if to admit that brought her great shame and disgust with herself. She had her private pity party, didn't eat for a few days, wallowed around in misery, all under the story that she had the flu and eventually she began to get over it. The details - which weren't very fresh to begin with - began to get fuzzier and soon enough it stopped being her first waking thought. She stopped living in the fear that someone knew her dirtiest secret and she would soon be caught and dealt with. No one knew, no one would ever know, she began to believe that. And one day she just stopped thinking about it altogether, until this came up.

And now, now she was forced to deal with her actions because said actions came with a serious consequence, one that was probably starving because its mother couldn't even hold down water.

"Mother..." The word came out with an awed inflection, and was far too foreign to her ears to be such a normal word. She couldn't believe it, that she could ever be a mother to anybody and especially not one born out of some stupid mistake. It was a tragic way to bring a child into the world and suddenly she felt a deep surge of sadness, not for her, but for the poor soul that lived within her and took the brunt of her mistake and her poor choices.

"I'm...sorry..." she choked out, knowing that it couldn't hear her, barely even a living being and yet she had cursed it to a life of nothing but sadness and pain. With a broken, awful mother who surely didn't have one maternal bone in her body and a terrible, criminal and most certainly absentee father what kind of life could it expect to have? Even if she wanted to keep this baby, even if she was allowed to when they found out who had fathered it, even if she was even allowed to stay in the village at all, the child's life would always be marked with shame, with lies and painful truths. If anyone ever found out the truth behind its lineage, he or she would always be an outcast and no matter how much love she'd try - and probably fail - to provide it would eventually hate her for bringing it into the world. What if something happened to her? Early deaths were definitely not uncommon in her line of work and then she'd be gone and it would be left to deal with the hard world alone. She had seen Naruto, one of her very best friends, go through that same kind of life every single day, she definitely didn't want that for her child, and Naruto wasn't the progeny of a criminal like this child would have been.

But despite all of these truths, she couldn't bring herself to just deal with it already. She could easily just go to Tsunade and come clean about this mistake and she could help her take care of it. Obviously she wouldn't be totally truthful, she'd be mad enough at her already without names involved but she could admit she had made a very bad decision one night and she would ask what she wanted to do about this and she would tell her...

What would she tell her?

Loud and frantic pounding at her front door interrupted her internal struggle and she was brought back to the unforgiving fluorescent lighting of her bathroom and the cold tile floor beneath her cheek. She had wondered how long she could hide away from the world before someone eventually came to find her. She tried to ignore the noise but they refused to give up so she slithered off her floor, feeling worn down and just plain awful, knowing she looked like shit and probably had vomit in her hair but no will to do anything about it and went to deal with the intruder.

Half a second after her locks were undone her door all but fell open and a very irritated and huffy Shizune stood in her doorway, her arms bogged down with various scrolls, books and file folders. The words that left her mouth were spoken in a way that clearly showed that Shizune was pissed at her; she didn't even look at her as she trampled into the apartment, uninvited mind you, and threw her load on the small kitchen table.

"My god, woman, what in hokage's name has gotten into you?-"

"Shizune-"

"-You don't show up to work in two days! Two days! Absolutely no one has heard a damn word from you and you-" She grabbed the disconnected phone cord off of Sakura's kitchen bar and held it up, "You unplugged your phone?!"

"Shizune, please-" she stood motionless in the still open doorway as Shizune continued her tirade, feeling like she might vomit and faint and Kami knew what else.

"Tsunade is absolutely livid and worried to death and has been terrified, along with everyone else I might add, that you've been dead in here and-" Finally she turned, facing Sakura and her face just dropped.

"Shizune..." Hot tears sprung to her eyes, and she choked, "I'm-I'm sorry I just-"

"Sakura, you look awful. Honey, what happened?" Suddenly every ounce of anger just dissolved and the older woman all but ran to her. She must have looked pretty terrible if the mere sight of her could drain Shizune's anger so completely. The faint feeling she felt from before crashed down on her and her knees gave out just in time for Shizune to catch her and keep her upright. As soon as she felt that contact the floodgates opened and she crashed, clutching onto coworker and friend for dear life, pouring out everything in the form of tears and snot on Shizune's shirt and they dropped to the floor together. She held her for a few moments, rubbing her back and letting Sakura use her as a human Kleenex. Finally the sobs died down and Sakura had to admit she felt a little better for at least having someone there to care about her. Shizune pulled away and looked into watery green orbs.

"Tell me what happened, Sakura."

She hung her head in shame, terrified that the next words out of her mouth would be the loop around which the noose was tied. She didn't want to tell Shizune, she'd certainly rush her to Tsunade - though she probably would have anyway, even if she said nothing - but there was nothing to be gained by keeping it a complete secret. She needed help; she couldn't do this on her own.

"I..." she looked up at the ceiling, trying to find something to distract her but Shizune pulled her face back down to her level. She knew then that she had no choice but to come clean, "I'm pregnant."

Shizune's eyes widened to that of saucers and for the briefest of seconds she looked as if she might laugh, in the event that Sakura was playing a joke on her or something. She guessed that Shizune kept expecting her to burst into laughter and was waiting for people to jump out and be like 'Gotcha!' but Sakura's expression stayed the same and Shizune's partial smile became a look of agape disbelief.

"What? No! But...but when? Who?" Sakura could understand why Shizune was surprised; it wasn't as if she was the one to expect it from. She hardly dated, she never really frequented clubs and she wasn't especially promiscuous. She had maybe two semi-serious relationships under her belt, both of which she'd never invested in and ducked out of as soon as things began to get somewhat difficult. Sakura was a notorious home-body and when she wasn't working at the hospital or on a mission. She wasn't the type of girl who walked down the street and people would comment on her as if she were some kind of looker. She knew she was attractive enough but she never put herself out there. She certainly wasn't one for one night stands.

She wiped her eyes with her hand, "You-you remember that mission Tsunade sent me on? The reconnaissance?"

"To Ame?"

"Yeah...well, one night I was getting pretty agitated, I didn't have any leads and it had been like two weeks and I decided that maybe if I opened up a bit I would get some information. I…I met a guy at the bar and the next thing I remember I'm waking up and he's-he's asleep in the bed and we're both naked and I just, I just ran, Shizune. I didn't know what else to do!" The words came out in a jumble and the relief she felt was immense. Shizune's face went from shocked to angry and for a second Sakura thought she was going to start yelling again.

"Did he take advantage of you?"

"Wha- no, I mean, I don't think so..." she had to choose her words very carefully from here on out, as even the tiniest slip up could lead to something even more awful, "I might have... I might have had a few drinks."

Shizune sighed and shook her head, "How many is a few?"

"I don't remember. I just remember being very hung over afterwards."

"I don't know Sakura, I've seen you drink and I don't think I've ever seen you hook up with a stranger you don't even know after a few drinks. You're positive he didn't slip you something?"

"Shizune, I'm sure I would have noticed if he drugged me!" She was still a shinobi damn it, not an invalid, she would have seen him, she was sure of it. Beside, she knew she had had more than just a 'few' drinks. She had had more than she could handle she could remember that. She knew she had been awfully drunk when she asked him if he wanted to get out of there and she knew she had been absolutely blitzed when she practically climbed him to kiss him.

Oh...god...

She had kissed him! For some reason, though she know it would seem a lot less substantial than sleeping with him, that fact made her even more sick. She knew she should have been praying that kissing was all she had done but it seemed more important, other than the fact that she was carrying around his child, that she had allowed his mouth on hers instead of the other. She knew this was irrational thinking, but she had been doing a lot of that lately, so she just figured she was being rational enough.

Why hadn't she remembered that fact sooner?

"It doesn't matter how this happened, but we need to get you to Tsunade now. You need to explain this to her yourself and you need a checkup." She stood and started rooting through her coat closet for her jacket and a pair of shoes, "Is this green sweater okay?"

Sakura stared blindly ahead, her chest, which was previously torrential with pain was now strangely numb. The next words she spoke came out unusually smooth, considering she had been so stressed about coming out about it in the first place.

"I have to get rid of it, Shizune; I don't think a prenatal check up is really going to matter."

Shizune's back tensed slightly but relaxed quickly, "It doesn't matter what you do. The check up would be for...both of you," She tossed a pair of boots at her knees, "Come on. We have to go before Tsunade sends a search party after me. She has been pretty much insufferable lately. And boy won't this just make her day, huh?" The brunette smiled and Sakura knew she was trying to make her feel better, but honestly, the only thing that would make her feel better was to have this problem dealt with for good. Something in her tugged at the thought but really it was the only option. She could not have this child. She just couldn't. She figured the grief and sadness she felt in ending it would be a necessary evil in order to prevent a much worse outcome. For heaven's sake, what if the baby came out with blue skin and gills? How exactly was she supposed to explain that? 'Oh, I have a grandmother on my father's side that's half fish'? That wouldn't rouse suspicion at all. She feigned a smile that she hoped didn't portray the gnawing terror she felt inside and picked her boots up.

As they left the apartment, she knew exactly what she had to do and she would do it. She just prayed that Tsunade would understand.

...

This is beginning to feel like the dawn of the loser forever...  
This is beginning to feel like the dawn of the loser forever.


	2. New Options and New Missions

_A/N: Okay, so this is another chap that I edited for POV fixing and grammar. I honestly feel a lot better about this change, less confusing on you as well as me._

**Chapter Two**

...

New Options and New Missions

...

_The animals, the animals - trapped, trapped, trapped;_  
_Till the cage is full._

_The cage is full, stay awake, in the dark;_  
_Count mistakes._

_The light was off but now it's on;_  
_Searching the ground for a bit of sun._

_The sun is out, the day is new and everyone is waiting;_  
_Waiting on you._

_And you've got time._  
_You've got time._

...

**Kisame**

...

He hadn't slept in a week, maybe longer, and he was beginning to feel the effects. This place, despite its cushy appeal, had left him ridiculously restless and wary. This mission was going well enough he supposed but it was taking a lot longer than he figured it would have. He was awful at these diplomatic things but Leader had specifically given orders that the negotiations were to be handled as peacefully as he could manage. If anyone knew anything about Hoshigaki Kisame, it was that he didn't do well at 'peaceful'. If 'peacefully' meant that he could not lop this feudal lord's legs off and bury them in the lavish garden outside of his huge house, then he didn't really want to deal with it. His name was Takamoto Shin; he was obnoxious and greedy, and now seemed to be under the impression that he and Kisame were the best of pals. He was ridiculously wealthy, even for a daimyo, and that was the point of this stupid charade. He had been willing to discuss a contract for some 'protection privileges' from the organization and the price was definitely right. Leader had insisted that the Akatsuki would need the financial assistance in the upcoming days, but he didn't divulge anymore information than that. What he couldn't understand was why he saw fit to send Kisame for such a delicate mission in the first place. If you needed a group of pesky hunter-nin dismantled, you sent Kisame. If someone was running their mouth about something they shouldn't and needed to be silenced, you'd send Kisame. If someone didn't pay up when it was time Kisame would break their legs and rip the payment from their chest. But when you needed a guy to handle your delicate diplomatic affairs and the outcome relied on how 'peacefully he could manage', you sent someone else. Kisame didn't do delicate, peaceful, diplomatic or gentle. His method was more action and less talk. It wasn't like he couldn't handle things without violence, he could and he was, but he preferred more alternative methods to getting what he wanted.

Right now, as he sat at the table, in a room full of serpentine and soft handed politicians, his alternative method would be to clear the entire room in one fell swoop with Samehada and remove the money from their fat pockets, blood splatter and all. He needed to fight; he was restless and needed something to destroy to rid himself of the excess. He could even deal with a spar and the demolition of some trees or something, anything just to get some adrenaline pumping. He hadn't been able to even do that, as he had been spending a large amount of time with the daimyo in order to get the negotiations where Leader had wanted them.

'That bastard is lucky I value my job...'

And he did. He really did. The life of a rogue shinobi was tough and it helped to have someone with your back and a place to return to when your work was done for the day. Most nukenin lived their lives on the run, always waiting for that distinct sound of a kunai whipping across the air and through their throats to indicate that their time was up. He had to admit he had a decent gig; most people didn't want to fuck with the Akatsuki or any of its members. It just wasn't wise. That's not to say that he couldn't live on his own as a single agent, he could, he had, but it was easier this way. Plus, he got paid, so that was a good bonus.

"So, Hoshigaki-san, Shiyo and I were discussing some rumors we had heard earlier today, a potential war between Konoha and Iwa I hear. We were hoping that maybe you could shine some light on that for us?" Shin's fat face was practically dancing with excitement, as if war was truly thrilling to him. The other four faces in the room shared the same excitement as Shin's and Kisame tried not to wince at the fact that he'd actually have to contribute to the conversation. He had insisted - politely, he reminded himself - that Shin introduce him as his bodyguard or something similar and that he be a silent partner but Shin had instead referred to him as 'Hoshigaki-san, my very special guest'. Honestly, it made him unjustly sick and kind of pissed to be referred to as a 'very special' anything, and he felt like he needed a helmet or something. The meal was nearing it's end now and he'd have to say something if he ever wanted to get the hell back to his ridiculously lavish room and not sleep for another night. Hopefully it would be the last; he was expected to be on his way back to Amegakure before the sun rose the next morning.

He flashed a row of sharp shiny teeth, kind of hoping for an adverse reaction, and more than disappointed when he got none.

"I can assure you gentlemen, the organization has absolutely no details on any war between Konoha and Iwa." That was a lie but it didn't matter. What Leader was up to was he and his organization's business. He had heard from Deidara that there had been a particular stir between the villages and that maybe Leader had a hand in it but no one knew anything other than that. He didn't care, and why should he? He was a hired hand, just muscle to be used when needed. All shinobi were tools to their villages, and he was a tool just like any other, except he worked for a different machine. Unlike his village, this machine worked for him too and actually gave something back to him for his efforts. He wasn't retrained to one place, he could generally come and go as he pleased and as long as he knew where his loyalties lie and where his bread was buttered, he could do what he wanted. Provided he carry out his orders as a professional, of course.

And if Hoshigaki Kisame was anything, it was professional.

...

**Sakura**

...

She stood there with restrained breath and wobbly knees, wishing she could run back to her apartment and hide forever. She couldn't read any emotion on her Shishou's face, except for the briefest shock when the news came out. When she first walked through those heavy doors that led to Tsunade's office, she expected something different than what she had gotten, a paperweight to the face maybe - Tsunade was notorious for her excellent aim with office supplies - but she had greeted her with a solemn 'Sit down, Sakura' and an unusual look that made her very uneasy. It was almost as if she knew what Sakura had to say, but that couldn't have been it. No one had known, hell not even she had known until just a few days ago. It seemed like an eternity as she sat there, across from the blonde with her expression unreadable and she braced herself for screaming, but it never came.

Instead, Tsunade's shoulders sagged and she placed her face in her hands, a long, exaggerated sigh escaping her before she spoke,

"There are no words to describe how disappointed I am right now, Sakura."

Sakura winced visibly; this bothered her worse than screaming or flying paperweights. Her voice was small like a child's when she responded, "My actions that night were inexcusable. I'm sorry Shishou."

She felt tears prickling at her eyes but she kept them from falling; she couldn't afford to act anymore childish than she had already been. Tsunade stood up and walked to the window, her back to her apprentice as she looked out over the village. Sakura was once more reminded of the fact that she had betrayed that same village, the one that had shielded her from harm her entire life, the one that she had been sworn to protect with her very life, and she felt even more ashamed that she was unable to divulge to entire truth of her deeds to the woman who had taken her under her wing and always treated her like more than just her student. For the first time since she passed away, she was almost happy that her mother was gone now, so she didn't have to see what a mess her daughter had become.

"That is not why I am disappointed in you," Sakura's eyes widened and Tsunade turned around, looking her down at her as she continued, "Everyone makes mistakes, Sakura, even you. Even me. I'm just hurt that you didn't come to me with this sooner, and I'm disappointed that you've let yourself get in this condition. You look awful, have you even been eating?"

She didn't respond but she already knew that Tsunade knew the answer. She hadn't eaten anything since yesterday; she didn't figure it mattered since she couldn't keep anything down anyway.

"Have you had morning sickness? Any swelling in your legs? Have you slept at all?" Sakura knew more questions would come and she had to answer them but she just wanted to go home and sleep. She was far too tired for this.

"That's why I haven't eaten anything, I can't seem to even keep water down. No to the swelling that I know of. All I've done is sleep."

Tsunade sat down on the desk in front of her, clasping her hands together, suddenly seeming very maternal and Sakura's heart warmed. This was one woman who truly loved her, and she knew that, which was why she felt all the worse for lying to her. It was a necessary lie, but she wish she could have been honest, Tsunade deserved that much, especially with all Sakura had put her through.

"Well," She smiled softly and reached out to brush away a stray lock of hair from Sakura's forehead, "The first thing we need to do is get you down to the examination room and do a check up. We can have an ultrasound done to see that everything is going okay in there. We don't need that baby suffering because its mother has been taking such poor care of herself. Then we need to get you on an IV drip to get you some fluids and nutrients, after that we can-"

"Shishou, I can't keep it." The words tumbled out before she could stop them and she wished she could have come up with a more delicate way to tell say it.

Honey eyes furrowed, looking confused, "I'm sorry?"

"I...I can't...keep this baby, Shishou."

Tsunade looked taken aback for a moment before she softened again and took Sakura's hand firmly, placing her other hand on her apprentice's face and forcing her to look her in the eyes.

"Sakura, I can understand that you are scared, I don't blame you. I understand that these are definitely not the circumstances in which you'd want to have a baby, but trust me when I say this: If you terminate this pregnancy, it will be something that you could regret terribly, for your entire life. Take it from someone who knows, sweetie."

"Shishou please..." Too late did she realize that the tears had begun and she was unable to stop them this time. She knew Tsunade would try to stop her, she expected her to, but she truly had no choice. This wasn't just some random stranger's child; this was the progeny of a man whose very existence proved a threat to the village's entire wellbeing. There were a number of horrific and terrible outcomes if it was ever known that she was carrying his offspring and none of them needed to be explored if at all possible. If that meant that she had to...had to remove her own child from the picture, so be it. For the greater good, she reminded herself, it was all for the greater good.

Tsunade sighed sadly, "It's your decision, Sakura, but... get the check up done. Have the ultrasound, hear the heartbeat and then...then if you still want to go through with this, you can. But I refuse to do anything until we check you out first." She stood and opened the door for her, indicating that she was going to make her go through with this regardless if she wanted to or not. She had no choice. Resignedly she stood; she was determined to do this anyway, no matter of an ultrasound could change that.

Nothing could change her mind now; she had to tell herself that.

...

**Kisame**

...

The night air in Amegakure was unusually cold, even if it was nearing winter, and the sky was clearer than he had seen it in months. Ame was typically drowned out in rain pretty much all year and though it let up a bit during the colder months it still had a tendency to look like it was going to rain at any moment, even if it didn't. He stretched out across the roof of the main Akatsuki headquarters, locking his arms behind his head. He watched from above as the bar hopping patrons stumbled across streets and roads in order to get to their next note-worthy destination. He could use a drink himself but he ignored that for something else; he had returned barely an hour ago and had felt drawn to his rooftop spot the moment he unloaded his gear in his quarters, for some unknown reason. He liked this spot, it gave him quiet to sit and reflect on things that he considered private. He didn't like to even think about personal things in the presence of other people and nearly everyone was in tonight, with the exception of Itachi and he would never be in again. Kisame would never admit it aloud, probably not even to himself, but sometimes he missed his old partner. Mostly just because Itachi held a silent respect for him that he had returned and he knew that if he had been partnered up again - he hoped he wouldn't - he would never have the same kind of partnership he and Itachi had. They weren't really friends, not in the traditional way anyway; they never talked about important things but they worked well together, had evened each other out and Kisame liked the fact that Itachi had defined their roles at once.

'He could have handled that mission a lot better than I did, that's for sure.'

It was a shame when he died, though he had seen it coming a mile away. He didn't honestly believe that Itachi's shit-head little brother would have been the one to stick him but he did, although Kisame was certain that Itachi let the boy kill him in the first place. Itachi's health was severely deteriorated, especially considering he was so young, and he was bound to keel over at anytime so he supposed the best thing he could have done was give his little brother the satisfaction of having his long sought vengeance when the time came. Things happened the way they happened, there was no point crying over spilled blood now.

He did harbor resentment towards Konoha though, it was their fault that things ended the way they had. That village was probably the worst out of all of them, spouting the purity of goodness and truth when the simple fact was that they operated the very same way every other village did. They used their tools the same way as anyone else but pretended to actually care for its inhabitants. Kisame scoffed, no village actually gave a shit about their shinobi. If you lost a tool you just replaced it with a new one and went on your merry way; to lie about it made it even worse. If it were up to him, that entire village would have burned to the ground years ago. Despite his irritation towards Konohagakure though, when they were dispatched there on mission Itachi would never let him do anything outrageous. It was almost as if he loved that awful place. How anyone could love a hidden village he had no idea especially when they were behind one's very own treachery. He certainly could give two shits less about Kiri, that place could drown in its own mist for all he cared.

He closed his eyes and let himself get wrapped up in the sounds of the city. Ame was probably the better of all the villages, at least they embraced a sense of freedom, but he wasn't tied to this place either. No village would ever get his balls in a vice again; he'd make sure of that. A fiery chakra signature filled the area and he cracked one eye open to see a familiar blond head in his vision, and the goofy, excited smile that came along with it.

"Can I help you, Deidara?"

The man in question plopped himself down a few feet away, still grinning like an idiot, and took out a piece of clay to fiddle with before speaking, "What are you doing up here, yeah? It's fucking freezing."

"Well, I was trying to get some quiet. Not that you would know anything about that, huh?"

Deidara laughed; a vibrant, sparky sound that was almost always contagious and Kisame hated it. He didn't dislike Deidara, he just wished he did and that made him not like him as much as he could. He was a good enough kid, a little bit explosive but he was too damn likable for Kisame to be comfortable with. If he had it his way, the only people he'd be surrounded by were those who didn't want to speak to him at all. Or dead people. Either way could work out for him.

"Oh, I see. This is like your quiet reflection spot, yeah? You're not going to start writing poetry up here are you? I'm not going to come up here one day and find you making yourself a purse, huh?" He busted out into almost maniacal laughter and was rolling too hard to catch the fist that collided with his arm. His laughing stopped immediately and pouted, "Ow, yeah. That hurt you know."

"I could have hit you in the face." Kisame shut his eyes and leaned back against the roof. He half wished Deidara would go away but he supposed he didn't mind the kid's company. It could be worse, he figured, it could be Hidan.

"Thank Kami you didn't, yeah. That's my money maker." They both laughed but the truth was that Deidara - despite the unusual hand mouths his kekkai genkai provided him with - was an attractive guy. He had the kind of looks most men (and women) would kill for. He referred to himself as 'man-pretty' and he wasn't lying. It wasn't that Kisame wanted the kind of looks Deidara had, he could honestly care less what people thought about him. He was used to the looks he got when he walked into a room; the similar faces of disgust, pity or fear were familiar to him now. He could deal with the disgust, he even enjoyed the fear he struck but the pity angered him. It reminded him of the look his mother used to give him after his transformation and before she died. He couldn't remember a lot of her, he just remembered a particular point in time where she would sit around drinking and crying because her baby was now a monster and she'd give him this look, like she only kept him around because she had to. Deidara wouldn't have to worry about things like that; his mug didn't invoke terror in the hearts of everyone who saw him. His bloodline was physically manifested, yes, but he could at least hide it for awhile. Kisame had to deal with his face every time he looked in the mirror or passed a body of water. People had just assumed that, with his tendency for violent actions, that he didn't own things like feelings. Maybe he didn't anymore. His appearance didn't bother him so much anymore, he had hardened to it over time and now this was the only way he could ever remember looking in the first place.

He was maybe three when the procedure had been done and two years after that his mother died - suicide he was told, and he believed it, probably couldn't stand being the mother of a monster. After that he was placed in the loving care of Kirigakure government and honed into the finest, most efficient killer they could mold him into. The rest was history. He'd keep it that way, there was no sense on dwelling on the past and he tried to focus on the present. It had been over fifteen years since he had left Kiri and he knew he'd never go back. He'd never need to. He looked over to the blond who was currently fiddling with a piece of clay, molding it into a little animal figure. He was beginning to get uncomfortable with the forced intrusion and figured he'd be going back down inside. He went to stand when Deidara stopped him.

"Going back inside?" He didn't look up from the figure, which was now in the shape of a dove. Kisame froze, if he told him he was he'd likely follow him and all Kisame wanted right now was to be alone.

"I was going to take a shower." He hoped that Deidara wasn't going to try joining him in that too. The thought made him cringe but he honestly didn't think that would happen he was pretty sure Deidara didn't swing that way, even if he did look kind of like a woman.

"Well, Leader wants to see you, yeah. Says it's urgent."

Kisame narrowed his eyes at the kid, "And you're just telling me this now? You've been sitting here for fifteen minutes!"

Deidara looked up sheepishly, "It slipped my mind?"

Kisame rolled his eyes. Great, now he was probably going to get a stern talking to about punctuality. He hopped down off the roof, leaving Deidara and reminding himself to get him back later.

...

In the darkest, deepest part of the Akatsuki Headquarters, an attractive slender woman sat on the edge of a desk. Her normally stoic face was slightly contorted in concern and she pressed her hands to her temples. Across from her a tall man stood in the shadows, waiting for her to comment on the news she had just been given.

"Are you absolutely certain that was what you heard, Zetsu?" Her quiet voice still echoed in the empty room, giving the illusion that there were more of her than just the one. It was just an effect of the room though, one that slightly annoyed her even still.

The man in question stepped into the moonlight streaming from the lone window, revealing a two-colored face that was split directly down the middle, one side black, and the other white. His upper body was encased in a carapace that resembled a venus fly trap and as he spoke, it was as if he had two separate personalities.

"We are certain of it, Konan-san. She spoke with her hokage about it."

Suddenly, appearing as if from nowhere, a dark and intensely strong chakra presence made itself known. The air itself filled with a coldness that was certainly not from the weather outside.

"So, it's true then. The Haruno girl is expecting, is she?" The voice that spoke echoed just like Konan's but this time it wasn't the acoustics of the room. Konan looked to her left as the figure appeared, as if out of thin air, but she knew he had been there the whole time. He certainly enjoyed his theatrics.

"We had suspected this would happen when we caught her leaving the hotel that night. Would you like us to take care of it?"

A cold, penetrating laugh permeated the darkness and for a moment Konan felt uneasy. What would Pein do with this situation? Would he let Zetsu just 'take care of it'? Would he even tell Kisame?

"No, no, I don't think that will be necessary Zetsu, thank you. You may go now, I wish to speak with Konan privately."

"Hai, Leader-sama."

Zetsu slipped into the floor and was gone in seconds, leaving Konan alone with her partner. They sat in silence for a few moments before Konan turned to him behind the desk. He looked the same as he always did, a complex mind working behind a face that gave nothing away.

"Pein-"

"No, do not say it, Konan. I do not wish to hear it. I'll handle this, you needn't worry." He had done it again, read her mind as if he lived there. She sighed quietly and reached out towards him, fingertips brushing against his bare arm. She felt him relax. He didn't seem as irritable about this situation as she figured he would have been.

"Do you think he knew who she was when they met?"

Nearly two months ago, Zetsu had come to them with information that he had spotted the apprentice to Konohagakure's Hokage in Amegakure, apparently on a mission. Pein had decided that she wasn't a threat to them, despite the fact that she was technically after information regarding the upcoming attack on her village that the organization had a hand in. While it was unlikely that she knew that, Konan had figured that Pein would have taken stronger precautions against preventing Sakura from getting her hands on that information. All he had done was send Zetsu to keep an eye on her, but not to act even if she came across something of worth. Zetsu claimed that he had seen her leave a night club with a man on her last night in the village, and once he tailed them back to their destination, he realized that the man was Kisame. He said that they were very inebriated and very intimate. Kisame took her back to an inn where he had a room rented, probably an ongoing room he kept for things like this, and that sometime hours later, she fled out the window and left the village shortly after. Now he had come back with information that she was currently pregnant with his child. It was as absurd as it was shocking. She was, after all, a very experienced medic-nin, second best in the shinobi world only to her very own mentor, the Hokage. The fact that she would even allow herself to be bedded by a stranger on a mission was perplexing at best; there was no way she could have possibly known who that stranger was. Konan severely doubted that Kisame had known either, so both of them must have been in hiding their appearances. When Sakura had awoken, after the incident, she must have realized what she had done and fled.

"I doubt that."

"Are you going to tell him?"

She couldn't see his face in the darkness but she could feel the slight smirk on his face no less. She knew his brain was turning over some sort of plan to deal with this in a manner that he saw fit. Some part of her felt as if he'd use this for the organization's benefit, as he did when he was thrown with a challenge.

"Konan-chan, what do you think," He stood and turned to the window, and she could see the moonlight shine off of the posts in his face, her heart squeezing tightly at the sight of him as always. He never ceased to make her weaker every day. He turned to face her and his unusual smile made her slightly uncomfortable, "would happen to Miss Haruno if her village found out who her child's father is?"

"I'd imagine she'd probably be tried for treason and exiled if they even suspected it. Why? What are you thinking Pein?" She truly wanted to know what he planned on doing.

"That child could potentially be of worth to Konoha. To a lot of nations. I don't know if they'd simply toss her out knowing she holds something like that within her." Pein, trailed his finger up her arm, sending shivers down her spine. She wondered briefly if he knew what things like that did to her, really, but she supposed he did and he did it with just that intention in mind.

"Do you think she plans on keeping it?" Konan certainly did not. The Haruno girl would be so distressed with not only an unplanned pregnancy, but also the knowledge of paternity of that pregnancy.

"It doesn't truly matter what she plans on doing, Konan-chan. I will see to this matter myself, you needn't worry with it."

"Pein, are you going to-"

"No, Konan, I am not going to tell him. He needs to find out himself, don't you think?"

"She's never going to seek him out, you know this. I highly doubt he'd seek her out. She's the only one he'd find out from, if not us."

Pein smiled at her, a soft smile meant to reassure, used in the wrong context and suddenly she felt even more left in the dark. That was Pein's way though, and she couldn't change it, wouldn't if she could.

"She's not going to have to seek him out. We're going to lead him to her. Now go, I need to see to some business matters."

Konan stood to leave but didn't move further. Though she wished he wouldn't cut her out of important matters, she'd never directly say it to him. She'd sit silently by and allow him to make his own moves, she'd always be by his side and he knew this. He could feel her hesitance to leave and placed his hand on hers, still on the desk.

"Do not concern yourself, she'll be along shortly. Wait for me."

Satisfied with this, Konan walked out of the room, leaving her leader and lover to his silence.

He knew where to find her when he was done.

...

**Sakura**

...

"Okay, here we go. I'm just going to put some of this conductive gel on your stomach and we can begin."

Tsunade didn't need to explain the procedure to her, Sakura knew how to perform ultrasounds, but she kept the line between patient and doctor as straight as she would with someone she wasn't as familiar with. It was how most medical practitioners conducted their work, and she appreciated it. She wasn't concerned with the results, and she knew they wouldn't be able to see much, it was just a little blob at this point, and a simple ultrasound wouldn't be able to detect any real features but she was still very much nervous. Then again, she thought anyone would be nervous in stirrups with no pants on.

Tsunade squeezed some of that terribly cold gunk on her stomach and placed the conducer to it. Nothing was visible at first and she desperately wanted to look away from the screen. She just didn't want to see it, the sight would be the final nail in her proverbial coffin, the proof that this truly was happening and she hadn't been in some awful dream. Sakura listened to the sound of her insides, a soft pulsing noise and vaguely detected a second, slight beating sound. Her chest constricted tightly at the sound. Tsunade moved the conducer around, uncomfortably pressing it deeper into Sakura's abdomen. After a few minutes of moving and wiggling, a visual appeared on the screen and she heard the sound more clearly now.

"Hear it? That's the heartbeat, nice and strong at this stage." She moved a little more until the fuzzy image became clearer and she could finally see better.

A small strangled sound escaped Sakura's throat before she could stop it, and her heart hammered out of control.

"There we are. There's the little head, and the body. I'd say you're at just about eight weeks exactly. Everything appears to be growing at a normal and correct rate but it's too early to tell completely." She pointed it out to her on screen, even though she knew Sakura already could see. Tsunade had counted on this, had known that if Sakura were to see it with her own eyes, her perspective would be different about her original plan.

What the rosette kunoichi hadn't counted on was that she would be right. Jade eyes were fixated on the screen, on the little extension of leg that seemed to stretch out slightly. She could hear the heartbeat strongly now, thrumming in her ears and echoing in the examination room. This little thing that was so tiny suddenly had a face - not that she could see it at that point - and now more than ever she was faced with the realization that what she was carrying was a living human being and a part of her. That other part didn't seem so important at that one moment, as she sat and gazed on in awestruck wonder at the little, slightly wiggly form that lived, survived and depended on her to keep it safe. For the first time in days, the smallest but most honest of smiles crept on her face. Tsunade was still pressing the conducer to her stomach but her face was fixed on Sakura's and she smiled in return. She returned to the screen and didn't even ask her if she wanted pictures before she started the commands for printing them.

Conflicting emotions rioted through Sakura and suddenly everything she had been working so hard to maintain began to crumble. She wished she hadn't seen the ultrasound or heard the little thump that indicated life, if for the reason that this would be even harder to do. She knew she couldn't simply 'get rid of it' anymore, didn't even know if she could have been so cold towards it to begin with.

"Sakura, are you alright?"

"I-I'm fine, shishou. I'm just...tired is all." She knew that she wasn't fine, she didn't even know why she lied in the first place.

"Well, let me go get these and when I get back we can talk discuss this more. Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back." In a flurry she was gone, leaving her apprentice to her jumbled thoughts and feelings. She sat for a moment, stoic and silent, listening to the sound of the hospital around her. One second she was fine enough and the next she was sobbing again, burying her face in her hands, crying like a baby once more. She desperately searched herself for options. Maybe she could put the baby up for adoption? That would be alright, she decided, as long as no one ever knew who had fathered it and it didn't carry any sudden, obvious traits from him. She sniffled and wiped her face on the back of her hand. Coming clean about being pregnant seemed not as awful as it had been beforehand, but what would they say if they knew she was simply going to give it away? A fierce anger fired up inside of her as she decided that she wouldn't care about what anyone thought of her. This was her life, her body and her child, and she would control them as she saw fit.

Tsunade returned soon after and wordlessly handed her a tissue before handing her the little flimsy photos. Sakura's hands trembled slightly as she gazed at them for what seemed like a long time before she spoke again.

"Shishou, I've been thinking..."

...

**Kisame**

...

He stood in the darkened meeting room, slightly uncomfortable and wishing he could be elsewhere, even on the roof with the blond nuisance. Unfortunately, he knew he had to handle what Leader had summoned him for before he could go anywhere. He had been waiting for about fifteen minutes and really, was it so difficult to not make a person wait forever when they had called for you in the first place? Suddenly that unusually strong but subdued chakra signature flooded the room and he had to grip Samehada tightly to prevent it from going insane. It did that every time it was around a unique chakra signature, but Leader's was its favorite. The scales wiggled with anticipation as if it would ever get a taste. He couldn't blame it, sometimes he wished he could too. Of course though, Kisame was not a complete idiot, and doubted he'd ever try.

"Kisame. I trust the meeting with Takamoto-san went well?"

"Hai, Leader-sama. The price is set at the standard you wanted it. He seemed very willing to pay it."

"I imagined he would. Very good. Now, down to more current matters: I have a new mission for you, very high priority." He slid a scroll across the desk and Kisame picked it up. Honestly he just wanted to get a few hours of sleep in, but he never turned down a mission (usually none of the members did, if they liked living) and he just hoped he could leave in the morning. He unrolled the scroll to reveal a few lines of script and a picture of a woman. She had green eyes and the most unusual hair color he'd ever seen: vibrant pink, like the color of cherry blossoms. Her head was adorned with the hitai-ate of Konoha and he cringed slightly. Figures, he wasn't even from that fucking place and it still haunted him. Something about this girl struck an unusual chord in him, but he ignored it as he read the information given on her.

"Excuse me for asking, Leader-sama, but what is so important about this? It's just a leaf kunoichi." He was beginning to feel a little annoyed with the extreme deprecation his qualifications had been getting lately. First diplomatic missions and now he was being forced to deal with little girls? What happened to elimination missions?

"I can assure you, this woman is very important to our plans. She is a very close ally to the Kyuubi and a highly qualified medic, I think we could use her skills as well as the leverage she'd give us as a bargaining chip. I need you to retrieve her and return her here."

Kisame had figured as much. He was fighting back the urge to ask why he had to be the one to do it, it wasn't like anyone else had anything important going on, and this mission seemed ridiculously simple. He had infiltrated Konoha on several occasions, to do so and snatch up a girl would be no problem but he felt strongly that this was a waste of his time. Of course, he'd comply but maybe he could have a little fun out of it if-

"Should I emphasize that she needs to be brought back alive and unharmed?"

Damn it. Well there goes that idea. "No, Leader-sama. When do you want me to head out?" He rolled the scroll back up and placed it inside of his cloak. The smug bastard had better be happy with the shit he'd been doing lately and a bonus would be nice for sure, he could use a new set of training weights.

"You can leave in the morning. Dismissed."

"Hai, Leader-sama." He ducked low to one knee before standing again and headed off to his room. Against his better wishes, he reached into his cloak and pulled out the mission scroll, scrutinizing the photograph of this Haruno girl as he strolled down the halls. She was somewhat familiar, but he couldn't recall where he had ever seen her. If she had been close to the Kyuubi that meant she was probably also a former student of the Copy-nin Hatake Kakashi, but she hadn't been there when they had been 'introduced'. The corridors were empty but that was to be expected as it was very late and most of the remaining members were probably asleep. He was relieved, dealing with Deidara again or Hidan at all would be unwelcome. He dropped his cloak the second his door closed and he stripped down to nothing as he made way for the bathroom, intent on taking a hot shower. The scroll was left on the bed, still open and he decided he might do a little bit of research before he tried to get some sleep. When he reached the bathroom he stopped at the mirror for only the briefest second to notice that he needed to shave before stepping in the shower. The pink haired girl seemed to stay with him as he turned on the taps and stood under the stream for a few minutes before washing his hair. Why was this tugging at him so much? She was just a damn goody-goody leaf kunoichi he had certainly never met before, so why did she keep popping up in his head?

'She's your mission. That's all.'

Of course that was what it was.

What else could it possibly be?


	3. Effortless Abduction of Haruno Sakura

_A/N: First off let me say thank you so much for the reviews and follows and favs I've gotten so far. Your feedback is always appreciated and don't be afraid to point out anything you think needs work. I'm not afraid of a little critique and, honestly, I need it. I am SO sorry that this chapter took so long for me to get up, but I've been so busy the past couple of weeks with work and school and home and I had some problems getting this one finished. As a reward for being so patient with me and waiting for this new chapter, it's almost twice as long as the first two. So this chapter leads Sakura into the lion's den Let's see how that goes. :P_

**Chapter Three**

...

The Effortless Abduction of Haruno Sakura

...

_I'm stuck in a coma; stuck in a neverending sleep_  
_And some day I will wake up, and realize I gave up everything._

_I won't be saved..._

...

**Sakura**

...

It had been nearly a week since Sakura's first prenatal visit and the apprehension that had been corked inside of her like a shaken champagne bottle seemed to have lessened a little. Actually, she had been feeling a hell of a lot better since then. She had decided against the abortion, knowing she didn't truly have the heart to do it at that point anymore. Tsunade had discussed the adoption route with her and she was feeling pretty good about it, especially the fact that she wouldn't have to begin the search for potential candidates until sometime after her fifth month. She said that they could keep track of her growth until then, in case someone found that important and wanted to know. Obviously she had been restrained from going on missions until after her postnatal recovery was over but she could still work full time in the hospital until Tsunade decided it would be wise to cut back and if she would need to quit later on.

Personally, she was more than eager to hand this over to Tsunade now that she knew she wasn't going to cut her head off. It was an enormous weight off of her shoulders. Now all she had to worry about was how she was going to explain this to everyone else. In a few months she'd be showing and as much as she wished she could just explain it as a few pounds she had packed on she knew that wasn't going to cut it. She'd have to be as honest as she was able to be; she just had to figure out when she was going to break the news.

It wasn't going to be today, she knew that for sure. She had dealt with enough over the past week and today, she had decided, was her day to just relax. Tsunade had let her leave the hospital early after a midmorning bout with some relentless morning sickness and insisted that she should take the rest of the day off. She wanted to argue that she would be fine but she couldn't lie and say that the break wouldn't be appreciated. She left the hospital feeling a bit better and by the time she reached the apartment the nausea had abated. She put on the kettle for a cup of tea and sat at her breakfast bar, fingering through some mail that she had left on her counter before she left for work that day. Pretty much nothing but junk mail and a few bills greeted her and her hand drifted towards the Bingo book that was sitting next to where the mail had been and she pulled it towards her. Lazily she flipped through a few pages, passing faces she knew and faces she didn't, before she stopped to look up at the silent tea kettle. When she gazed back down at the book, an unfortunately familiar face stared back at her and her breath caught in her throat, hand instinctively going to her stomach in response.

His face was etched in an unsettling grin, revealing perfectly white, razor sharp teeth contrasting sharply against the bluish gray of his skin. She narrowed her eyes at the photo, noting that the hitai-ate wrapped around his head was missing its signature slash through the symbol of Kirigakure. He looked quite young, possibly late teens or so, and somehow seemed more volatile than in the picture she that was more familiar with, in the more current bingo book. A shiver ran through her spine and her eyes seemed to be firmly locked to his. A surge of anger flooded through her, increasing the longer she stared. Finally she tore her eyes away and read the description below:

_Name: Hoshigaki Kisame_

_Date of Birth: March 18th_

_Blood Type: AB_

_Classification: Cypher Intel Division (former); Seven Swordsmen (former) _

_Village of Association: Kirigakure no Sato_

_Current Association: Akatsuki_

_Status: Excommunication from known village; current nukenin status _

_Rank: S-Class rogue shinobi; high priority capture;_

_Hoshigaki is a violent, blood thirsty and sadistic fighter. He takes the utmost pleasure in wounding and maiming his victims before he kills, and has a knack for dismembering body parts with his chakra absorbing blade, Samehada. Extreme caution should be taken when in his presence. Hoshigaki should NEVER be approached by a single agent, and ONLY with prior permission from the Hokage, should the proper classified team approach and attempt to detain or eliminate._

For some reason, though she was already familiar with these facts, reading it now brought a sense of perverse intrigue to her. Why, exactly, was he such a violent person? What had happened to him in his life that had made him that way? She knew she shouldn't care, hell; she shouldn't even be looking at this. Wasn't she supposed to be trying to forget that he existed at all? His simple being in life was haunting her enough; she didn't need to willingly seek out information on him. It's not like she'd ever truly seek him out, he'd likely just kill her, even if he _did_ remember who she was. And if he _ever_ found out that she happened to be pregnant with his offspring he'd surely kill her, with no regard for his child whatsoever. Someone like him was unlikely to care about something like that. He'd simply eliminate the problem without hesitation, namely with his sick brand of infamous slaughter.

Of course he would. Predators didn't care about the wellbeing of their prey, no matter how defenseless.

Right?

She shook her head violently, trying to clear such traitorous thoughts from her head. It wasn't as if she'd ever see him again anyway. The sharp whistle of the tea kettle broke the strained silence of the apartment and she was glad for the distraction. Leaving the book still open on Kisame's page, she went to the kitchen to focus on making herself some tea, completely unaware that in a few hours her life would once again take an unexpected turn.

...

**Kisame**

...

Getting into Konoha had been simple enough; as far as he knew, he hadn't been detected. The simple amount of back entrances and holes in the village's security was laughable. He figured that with something as precious as a tailed beast - the most important one, no doubt - in your hands, one would be more apt about keeping it safe. Fortunately for them, he wasn't there for the Kyuubi kid, which baffled him to no end, though he was wise enough not to question Leader's decisions more than he had. He wanted to ask desperately why, instead of going after a medic kunoichi, he couldn't just snag up the kid instead, if truly that was Leader's final intention. He knew the answer, truly, but the reality was unsettling to him.

Chances were, even if he got anywhere close to him, the kid would just unleash the beast inside and probably either take him down or put up so much of a struggle that he'd alert half the village to his presence. Kisame didn't want to admit the former. The fact that a simple child, barely an adult as far as he was concerned, would be able to render him useless or even dead made him uneasy.

He kept to the forest inside of the village most of the day and as soon as the sun went down he started scouting for information on his target. Unsurprisingly it hadn't been very hard to come by. Apparently, Konoha was very proud of their Haruno Sakura, their little medical prodigal ingénue. The records office had been uninhabited; otherwise someone would be in for a surprise when they came in the morning for work to find their coworkers dead.

He had gotten information on everything he would want to know about her - academy graduation, element type, current housing address, work schedule, certificates of achievement - with ease and now he was headed to stake out the girl's apartment until she turned in for the night. He wanted to just incapacitate her quickly and get the hell out of there as soon as possible. Just because it had been easy to get in, didn't mean that he wanted to hang around and get friendly with the locals. He didn't need to remind himself that he hated this awful place and for now 'in-and-out' suited him just fine.

The sun had just completely set when he approached her apartment building and he scaled the building opposite of hers with ease, until he came in visual contact with the window that corresponded with her location. The curtains were drawn back, allowing him to get a good view of her living room and kitchen. Darkness enveloped him, giving him the advantage on her that provided a thrill greater than any drug or alcoholic beverage ever could. He waited a few minutes, predatory eyes fixed on the window, watching until she walked past and settled at the tiny dining table directly in front of the window. Her hair was knotted high on her head in a messy bun that shone with dampness and she was wearing a pair of pajamas with what appeared to be cupcakes that had smiley faces on them. His eyebrow rose at such an obviously girly thing. She had a book in her hand, thick and entirely black, and was reading from a page in it. She stayed on that particular page for a very long time, so he could only assume that she was studying its contents carefully. A few times she shut the book, placed it on the table and got up, only to return book minutes later, opening it back up to what he could see was the very same page. He watched as the look on her face changed from worried to something mirroring disgust and back to worry, before she'd close it and abandon it on the table once more. She repeated this ritual four times before she got up, book still in hand, and began to shut the lights off in her apartment, finally disappearing down the hall and into what he figured was her bedroom. Instinctively he moved, switching buildings until he located her bedroom window. Unfortunately this one was completely covered, mint green curtains blocking his view of anything. A faint light shone through the curtains for about half an hour before they too were extinguished. He had taken this to mean that she was finally going to sleep, and he decided to wait another half an hour before he made his move. If she was still awake and caught a glimpse of him, unintended, things would not go as smoothly as he had planned.

He took this time to decide his best method for subduing her without her knowledge, intent to keep her unconscious - or at the very least, disabled - until he was far away enough from her village for it to matter. He had to remind himself periodically that she was supposed to be unharmed when she was presented to Leader, or else his balls would be on a platter. This was disappointing; he at least wanted _something_ of a fight, if for no other reason than to entertain him. He doubted this girl could give it to him anyway, she looked as harmless as any fly he had ever swatted.

'Probably the reason why she's a medic.'

Of course, if there was one thing that the shinobi life had taught him, it was that you should never judge a book by its cover.

The moon hung high over Konoha, drenching it in a peaceful glow, and he decided that he had given her enough time to promptly fall asleep. He made his way back towards the living room window, hopping silently on the ledge. He was glad he had sealed Samehada in a scroll, since the lack of extra weight ensured his silence and allowed him to balance perfectly on the sill. He slid the unlatched window open slowly, making sure not to make even the slightest noise, and found himself even more disappointed in this kunoichi as he went. She must have put great stock in her village to not even lock her windows at night, a foolish mistake that soon she'd be paying for.

He slid inside and took a little time to look around, familiarizing himself with the little apartment for some reason he didn't understand. For such an obviously feminine woman, she sure didn't have a lot in the way of personal effects. The majority of the clutter in the small space was comprised of books. It was a ridiculous amount that spilled over shelves and onto the floor, piling up in several stacks, most almost reaching the ceiling in height.

Contrary to popular belief, Kisame wasn't purely brawn. He enjoyed a battle of wits and was more than properly educated, more so than most people he knew. Itachi had said once that his facade of animalistic characteristics wasn't always fitting, and that stupid didn't do well on him. It wasn't exactly a compliment but as far as Itachi had been concerned, it was the closest he would ever come. Kisame had taken it as a compliment though, so the point had been made. He did enjoy a good book from time to time, and this girl had a very impressive collection, something that - if circumstances weren't what they were - he might have enjoyed perusing.

Other than the absurd amount of books this girl had, nothing much else was out on display. He turned towards the little open kitchen; with the exception of a large Chinese zodiac calendar scroll next to the refrigerator and a few framed photos of some roosters over the stove, it wasn't very lived in. There were a stack of boxes in the corner next to the dining room table, all packed full and sealed, that were labeled according to room, indicating that she had just recently moved in and hadn't had time to unpack. Despite the unusual urge to dig through their contents, he ignored them and turned his back on the kitchen, moving out of the little living room and towards the hallway. He stopped at the entrance, listening for any noises to indicate she was waking up or was still awake. Satisfied with the silence he moved, and stopped before a cracked door - one of only two in the hall; he guessed the other was the bathroom - and peered through it.

She was tangled in the bed sheets, illuminated by only the soft glow of the moon through her sheer curtains, one leg slung over a pillow. Her hair was pulled down now, flooding the pillow with pink, and he hadn't realized that it was so long since her picture had revealed it to be cropped close to her neck. It had an almost metallic shimmer in the dim light and he narrowed his eyes. A strong but incredibly calm chakra signature filled the room, wrapping itself around him in a way that made him intensely uncomfortable. Something about her chakra was off-putting, almost familiar, even more so than her picture or even seeing her in the flesh. A tingly shiver traveled down his spine at their close proximity and for the very first time in his life he was overwhelmed with the urge to run. He remained rooted to the spot, growing angry with himself for behaving so oddly, and tossed it to the side, moving one step towards her bed. Her scent caught in his nose and filled it with the soft, delicate smell of freesia and cherry blossom and a tincture of some kind of muscle balm. Her legs were bare now and he could see how long and lean they were. She had decent tone in her muscles, a result of intense training and despite the little scars that dotted her here and there, her skin was a pale creamy color that shimmered in the glow. The shark inside him swam about in slow, intent circles, concentrating on her deeply, intensely circling as if it wanted to examine her further. He shook his head, frowning at himself. What the hell was his deal?

Sure, she was attractive; a pretty young girl who smelled nice and had legs that seemed to keep going on and on. Any idiot could clearly see how good-looking she was, but that wasn't enough for him to actually want to look more than once at her. He saw women everyday who were clearly more endowed and more filled out - though for her age, she was pretty well filled out herself - and more mature than her.

But for all her good-looks she was just a _girl_, this much was obvious, and if Kisame had wanted to seek out the comfort of the opposite sex, he'd seek out a _woman_. The shark was behaving strangely, more apprehensive than normal, unlike it's usual aggressive self, circling with caution, as if it sensed something he could not. He shook his head once more, wanting more than ever to get out of there, but he knew she had to come with him, and that didn't help his apprehension.

'Get yourself together, idiot, it's just a little girl. Stop acting like a bitch and get on with it so you can get back dump her on someone who has better use for her than you do.'

Pearlescent eyes still trained on her form, he removed a small syringe and glass vial from his waist pouch. Kisame couldn't rely on genjutsu to help him keep her from waking up and thus making his job a miserable hell, so he'd have to use a more old fashioned method to ensure this. He slid the needle into the tube, taking only a small amount of fluid into the syringe and pushed slightly to relieve any bubbles, before sliding the needle into her neck, depositing fast acting sedative into her bloodstream. She tensed visibly for a few seconds, her brain probably trying to rouse her to defend herself against suspicious chemicals being entered into her body, but soon she relaxed heavily, her body sinking into the bed deeply. Her eyes opened for a fraction of a second during this time, but he doubted she had seen him, not that he cared if she did or didn't. By this point she was out, and he had about six or so hours until she'd need another dose, if they hadn't made it back by then. He could make the trip from Konoha to Ame with ease, taking the shortest route he knew and the only reason it had taken him so long to get to Konoha was because he had to stop and take care of some prior business halfway through. He could make it back in about seven hours, six if he really pushed it, but since he'd have to carry the girl - an obnoxious dead weight - he probably wouldn't be able to make it in six. He placed the vial and the recapped syringe back in his pouch and pulled out a pair of chakra restraining wrist cuffs which he fastened around her small wrists. This would ensure that, if she did somehow wake up early, she wouldn't be able to use but only the tiniest amount of chakra, just enough really to keep her alive and no more, so she couldn't use any jutsu on him. He leaned over to lift her onto his shoulders when something on her bed caught his eye and he almost jerked back from the sight. It was altogether weird, like an omen - if he believed in those, which he didn't - and it caught him off guard. On her bed, splayed open next to her chest, was a bingo book and on the page was his own face smiling viciously back at him. He didn't question it any further, honestly did not want to know why she had been reading his page, if she was. The chances of her checking up on him of all the people in that book were so slim, so infinitesimally small that it could not have been what it appeared at all. She was probably just looking at someone else in the book and the book had moved or shifted to his page while she slept. Of course that was it, and here he was getting all crazy and superstitious for no reason. Old age was beginning to settle into him or something, because his neuroses were intensifying with every second he spent with his unconscious captive. He lifted her lightly - not that it really mattered, the sedative, while mostly safe, was very potent and he could sling her around like a bag of rocks and she wouldn't stir - and settled her on one of his broad shoulders. When he turned his head, he was met with the sight of a red lace covered ass in his face and only then did he realize that he should have put some pants on her before he picked her up. He looked around for something easy to slide up her legs and located a long flowy blue skirt on the chair settled next to her closet. He disregarded any other personal effects of hers, couldn't be bothered with it anyway and slid the skirt up onto her hips. He grabbed a thin dark throw blanket and threw it on top of her, just in case someone saw him toting a live hostage out of the village - though he doubted anyone would see him at all. She was light, like he thought she would be, despite the fact that every muscle in her body was slack. As he left he caught sight of a black medic bag settled on the wooden desk across from the bed. He peered inside and saw that it was full of various medical supplies and different sorts of balms and ointments. He didn't know why but he grabbed it and fastened it to his waist before leaving the bedroom. He didn't waste anymore time after that and left the apartment quickly.

He was out of the Konoha gates, one unconscious kunoichi gained, in no time.

...

Konan sat on the edge of the bed, fingers fiddling with a piece of paper absentmindedly, listening to the sound of the beds other occupant's light and steady breathing. He had finally fallen asleep after almost four hours of long and intense love-making, something that usually put her to sleep and kept him up afterwards, usually allowing him to tend to business matters uninterrupted; not tonight. For some reason she had been deeply troubled with the situation regarding the Haruno woman and Kisame as of late. Pein had sent Kisame to retrieve her, and she couldn't fathom why he had done that. She knew the purpose of bringing the medic-nin here, though she was very against it, but she couldn't understand why he had sent Kisame. Kisame didn't know the truth, Pein would never tell him and letting him discover it on his own came with many different outcomes that Konan knew wouldn't be good. And what was Pein planning to do with this girl? If he simply wanted to eliminate the problem and keep the child as a potential weapon, he could just wait until she was nearing the delivery period, have her killed and take the baby from her womb. It was a rough and harsh solution but it was more like Pein to do that than to take her as a hostage and keep her here until the baby was born. Through a little additional intel from Zetsu they had discovered that the rosette kunoichi had made the decision to give the child up for adoption, so she obviously didn't want it. Konan had offered the suggestion that they should stage an adoption meeting, possibly use hired shinobi to pose as a couple, and take the baby themselves. Pein had refused that route, claiming that anything could happen to Haruno in between now and then and that the child could be put at serious risk. He wanted to watch over the pregnancy himself, to ensure the health of both mother and child until delivery. She could understand that, the child would be a very valuable asset to the organization, especially if raised by the organization itself and taught to hone its skills efficiently. With it's father's massive chakra stores and it's mother's incredible chakra control, it could be raised to be one of the most efficient shinobi the organization would ever have. The time and effort it would require to raise a child seemed to be worth it to Pein, if the result was as he predicted it would be. That was of course, if the DNA was accurate. Unlike a traditional demon sealing, Kisame's had taken place in a much more medical setting, with true to life DNA bonding between him and the shark. The shark was literally as much a part of Kisame as any part could be. It truly thrummed within his veins; it was molded and bonded in his DNA, which meant that the chances of part of the demon being passed onto his offspring were more than likely.

If the child survived of course.

She had done research on this type of DNA bonding and demon sealing, and while the details were sometimes lost on her, one specific detail was not. The chances of the baby surviving outside of it's mother's womb, while carrying such inhuman DNA markers, were iffy. It was about a fifty-fifty chance of survival and really the chance depended on the mother herself. If her body was strong enough to deliver the child safely, the chance rose significantly. Since this was such an unusual case, the offspring itself would be unusual and the labor and delivery would be much more difficult. And if Sakura herself could not deliver the child smoothly enough, her chances of survival would dwindle as well. And there had been several cases of the child being born fine and the mother would not survive.

Konan shivered as a cold draft crept from somewhere unknown and she sighed, eyes gazing at the sleeping man to her left. She truly hoped that he knew what he was doing, because if he did not, than the lives of two people would be in danger. She had to trust that he did and she would but she was allowed to have her doubts.

One thing had been plaguing her relentlessly, something even more so than the actual prospect of dangerous births or chances of survival postnatal: Kisame's reaction to all of this.

What would he say, what would he do, when he found out about all of this? It was well known how violent his tendencies were but he was, on the inside, just a man. Would he try to eliminate the mother of his own child? She wanted to believe that no, he wouldn't, but this whole thing was like a terrible game of Russian roulette, there was no way to determine the true outcome of this. Pein was playing a twisted game with three different lives, two of which were completely innocent. What if, by the tiniest chance, Kisame accepted this for what it was, and wanted to take care of both the baby and Sakura? Konan doubted that but there was always a chance. Either way, she didn't believe that Kisame would appreciate Pein's interference in his personal life or his potential family's lives. Or perhaps, and this thought saddened her more than she cared to admit, perhaps he simply would not care one way or the other, for Sakura or for this child and would allow Pein to do as he wished with them both.

Suddenly she became very tired, lying down beside Pein, trailing her fingers down his arm.

All she could do, she decided before her eyes drifted lazily shut, was trust in Pein. That was all she could ever do.

...

**Sakura**

...

Something wasn't right; she could feel it before her brain even drifted back to partial consciousness. Her dream had been hot and fevered, marked by uncontrollable shivering and shaking of her limbs and she could feel, even through her deep sleep, that something foreign had been introduced into her body. The thing that had shaken her back to a somewhat lucid state was just that, shaking. The ground appeared to be moving beneath her and she could feel the wind through her hair and smell the distinct odor of leaves and dirt. This made her believe that she was indeed outside somewhere, though how she had gotten there was a complete unknown factor, one that frightened her. She could feel, without even moving them, that her limbs were extremely heavy and that if she were to try, she would be almost unable to move them. Her body kept trying to push her back to sleep but she stayed as alert as she could. She wanted to open her eyes but did not try for fear that whoever had taken her from her bed would see and take more drastic measures; she didn't even know if she could open them anyway. She began to feel things out as carefully as she could, without using chakra to help her. Unfortunately, without even trying, she could sense that her chakra was being repressed, so much so that the weak feeling she was experiencing was possibly not just from whatever drug she had been given. Suddenly, without any warning, very strong nausea twisted her and before she could even hope to stop it, her stomach expelled its contents.

"Shit..."

Suddenly all was still, and she could feel exaggerated breathing from the thing or person that seemed to be carrying her before she collided butt-first with something hard, soreness rippling through every muscle. Her consciousness was wavering back and forth now and she couldn't even hope to stand and defend herself. The only details that were clear to her were these: She had been kidnapped, she had been drugged and she had just thrown up all over her captor. She heard rustling leaves and cloth and a deep sigh before she felt something rubbing against her front. At first the fear that she was about to be ravaged violently on some dark wood floor caught her in it's hold and her breathing sped up; soon though, the offending touch stopped and she realized that whoever it was must have just been wiping her mess off of her shirt. She wanted to move so badly but did not know if she even could, or if that would even be wise. Her chakra was useless and frankly would not have been much help anyway, considering the fluctuations it had been enduring with the pregnancy-

The realization hit her like a slap in the face. She had forgotten all about the baby! Whatever drug had been given to her, combined with whatever rough treatment the bastard had administered to her could not be safe for the baby. Before she could stop herself with rational thought, her body kicked into involuntary fight or flight mode. With as much strength as she could ever have in this situation, she viciously kicked out, feeling somewhat victorious when her bare foot connected with something firm.

"Ow! What the fu-"

She didn't stick around to listen to the rest, and unbelievably pulled herself up, even without the use of her hands and took off as fast as she could run in the opposite direction, only opening her eyes after she had moved. She could feel her sluggish limbs and body dragging her down, and whatever speed she might have had seconds ago was dwindling fast. If she could just get somewhere and hide, she might be able to stay low long enough and he might let up.

Without warning something hard collided with her body and she was flung forward, through a thicket of branches or brush. A series of burning sensations engulfed almost every inch of her bare arms and legs and she cried out, immediately spotting the scratches and small puncture wounds that were hidden beneath spiny balls that had attached themselves to her skin. The pressure on her back lifted momentarily before she felt a strong hand bury itself in her hair, yanking her head back viciously.

"Do. Not. Move." Hot breath puffed against her ear and the voice was very clearly filled with irritation and anger.

She remained still, for fear that he might decide that she was too much trouble and kill her now. Normally that wouldn't have bothered her so much, she was prepared to die for the sake of her honor, she supposed. Now she couldn't say that. Now she only thought of protecting the child she would have to bear. If she could do nothing else more for it, she would at least bring it into the world safely. Of course, if she had been in this situation and not pregnant, she would probably be able to fight back. She could have forced the sedative out of her body with chakra and been alright to fight. It obviously was only meant to sedate, not to kill, or else she'd be dead by now. Then again, there was also the point of the chakra sedation her body was undergoing. She had a feeling of where that was coming from, possibly the cuffs binding her arms behind her back.

Maybe she wouldn't have been able to get out of this alive, but at least she could have tried, which was more than she was doing now, lying on her stomach in a nest of nettles, helpless.

Suddenly the hold on her hair was relinquished and she let her head fall onto ground, tears prickling behind her eyelids. She wanted to turn her head, to see who had her so helpless, so useless, but she refused to let them see her cry. Her hormones were working overtime and she just couldn't find it in her to expose herself anymore to this man.

"Get up, kunoichi."

She couldn't get up; he of all people should know that since he was the one who had her hands bound and her chakra at a nearly dangerous level.

"I said get up. Now."

"I-I can't..." Her voice broke, and the resulting response was a pitiful little whimper; she wished she hadn't said anything at all.

The man from behind her sighed and she felt her body being lifted with ease, felt the little snarls tug on her clothes and skin before she was freed from the offensive bush and placed on her own two feet. She could feel his presence behind her, chakra emanating from him like a blinding heat that she hadn't thought to notice until now. He was clearly strong, a large man with a broad shoulder and little patience. She could tell that thus far. Still...

Why hadn't he killed her? Why even bother to take her at all? She was hardly important to anyone, at least outside of Konoha, and yet here she was.

Why wasn't she reacting differently to this? Why not make a scene and freak out, maybe someone would hear, maybe someone could help her.

Probably not...

"Kunoichi..."

Her body stiffened at the sound, but still she refused to turn and face him, refused to let him see the tears that had already begun, despite the fact that she willed them to stay put. She wouldn't let this bastard see her weakness. She just couldn't. If he wanted her, he'd have to take her by force, she would not move from this spot.

It was as if he had read her mind and she felt the tiny sting at her neck and, despite the fear of being unconscious again, she did not resist; she did not try to fight it because she knew that whatever he had in store for her she'd rather be out cold when it happened.

Before her mind gave way to total darkness again, she felt a pair of large hands slide around her middle, and something inside of her, something unusual and foreign couldn't help but think that those hands felt vaguely familiar.

...

**Kisame**

...

The kunoichi's shallow but easy breathing was the only thing he seemed to concentrate on the entire way back to Ame. Since her little escape attempt he had been increasingly uneasy that she'd wake up and attempt to run away again. However she remained under the effects of the sedative the entirety of the remaining trip and though he was thankful for that, he found himself unusually paranoid and wary of this girl. Something about her just struck a bad chord in him for some reason. She didn't fight the way he figured she would have, barely even tried, and though this disappointed him for the lack of fight he would get out of her, there was something else about her that had - for lack of _any_ better word - momentarily quelled the shark inside of him.

It was as perplexing as it was anger inducing. The bloodlust, which would normally override any real logical thought, hadn't surfaced at the sight of her, bloody and bruised from her attempt to outrun him. Something else had replaced it. Something he did not want to discover further. There was definitely something unusual about this girl, something that, he was irritated to realize, was being kept from him deliberately.

Honestly, he thought as he reached the village gates, headquarter tower looming into the dark rainy sky above him, he wasn't even sure he wanted to know.

It wasn't like it could possibly involve him.

...

"Kisame has returned."

"Hn."

"The girl is still unconscious, what do you want done with her?"

The silence throughout the meeting room was rife with unusual tension as Konan awaited further instruction. Her apprehension about this entire ordeal was only exacerbated as she watched the shark-nin towing the young medic out of the rain and inside the building with an unusual look on his face. He seemed confused and she wondered if somehow he already knew, or at least suspected that something was going on. At first she was sure he'd be able to sense it, considering his strong inclination towards hormonal and scent disruption, but she didn't think he had yet. Perhaps it was just too early too really tell. Something was different about him; she could sense it when he walked past her in the foyer, something unnaturally calm. Even if he didn't yet know what it was, he did know _something_ and that in itself was enough to frighten her with its possibilities.

"I suppose we should let her sleep off the rest of the medication. Have Kisame put her in the cell."

"The cell? Pein, you can't be serious-"

Before she could finish, the burning heat of his hand was wrapped around her arm in a way that was almost painful, but not quite. It was enough to shut her up though. She had questioned him, he didn't take too kindly to that, and though she knew better she did not think that locking the poor girl in that dark and awful place was the best thing for her.

"You question my methods, Konan?"

"Forgive me, Leader-sama. I just don't think that waking up in such a place would deem well for the girl. She's been through a lot already; the added stress of being down there alone would only make it worse."

"Konan-chan, you seem to forget what her purpose is in this game, do not tell me you've gone soft already. She's been here barely ten minutes and already you're feeling sorry for her?" His hand dropped and she breathed out quickly. As loathe as she was to admit it, and as much as she loved this man with every ounce of her soul, sometimes his tendencies frightened her. He had never hurt her, he probably never would, but she couldn't put it past him if she refused him something he wanted.

"I do not forget, I am aware of her role. I just thought that it would be best to keep the stress to a limited amount, if we could help it. Otherwise, she may miscarry and your plan would be for nothing."

In a second he was behind the desk once again, his hands perched below his chin as if he were thinking very hard about it. She knew he wasn't, he never needed to think hard on anything, but she was pleased he was considering her counsel. Sometimes he did.

"Alright, Konan-chan, no cell. Do you have any ideas on where we should keep her then? Since you are so full of wisdom today, after all."

She couldn't tell if he was picking at her or if his sarcasm was a verbal blow to her intelligence. Pein hardly ever insulted her, so she doubted it. Perhaps he really was asking.

"She could stay in Itachi's old room, just until we find a better place for her."

The smallest of smirks graced his face and suddenly she realized the depth of her mistake too late. Itachi was still a sore subject for Kisame, even if he would never admit it. When someone did bring up mention of his old partner, Kisame would just avoid it entirely. He liked to act as if he could care less that Itachi was dead but she knew the truth. Though he and everyone else knew that it was coming, had been coming for quite some time and that it was not remotely unexpected, it shook him in a way that it might if a normal person had lost a brother. And placing the girl in Itachi's old room? Well that might very well place an even more viable dislike in the kunoichi than Kisame might already have. Pein, for whatever reason, wanted Kisame to resent her or something of the sort. He definitely wasn't providing a stable foundation for any relationship that might be laid because of this.

Her head began to ache. What exactly was she doing? Of course there would be no _relationship_. It's not as if they would kindle some sort of romance just because she was carrying his drunken love child. This was all being done for the sake of the organization and here she was letting her heart get in the way over what? Some kind of weird vagina loyalty?

"Just when I think you couldn't possibly get any more brilliant, there you go. Very good Konan-chan. Tell Kisame to put her in Itachi's room, and when she wakes you bring her to me. She and I need to have a little chat. Dismissed."

Konan couldn't repress the unusual anxiety that only rose when the heavy doors slammed behind her.

...

**Sakura**

...

Something soft and warm cradled her in its grasp and she was thankful for it. Her head was throbbing with a severity she hadn't thought possible. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to her skull. What had happened that had her feeling so god-awful? Every time she tried to conjure the slightest thought, the sharp pain in her head intensified. A small tear made its way down her cheek, forcing one eye open in the process, allowing her to see. The room she was in was dark, the only window seemed to be covered in thick curtains, but they were left open just enough for her see a tiny stream of moonlight peak through.

Where was she?

Her skin felt as if it had been set on fire, and now she could feel the pressure of the sheets rubbing against what felt like numerous scratches along her bare arms and legs. She wanted to cry out from the pain but she kept her outburst to herself, knowing that self-preservation was far more important than venting her anguish at the time. She knew she wasn't in her bed, couldn't have been, and briefly she could remember an altercation with an unknown party taking place somewhere outside. In addition to her burning flesh and screaming head, she could feel the after-effects of some drug: disorientation, drowsiness and a rather uncomfortable ache in every muscle. So she had been drugged, but for what? And when?

She couldn't remember getting into any situation willingly where anyone would have a chance to dope her up, so that meant it had been administered while she was unaware. She must have been asleep when it had happened.

Had someone broken into her apartment and drugged her in order to abduct her?

That seemed to be the only logical explanation, considering her current unknown surroundings and her general malaise.

If only she knew where said surroundings were...

All she needed to do was try to relax and concentrate on figuring out where she was; the pounding in her head was having none of that, however. She couldn't move very much, and she could feel lingering amounts of the drug administered to her still in her body so whatever movement she could make was limited. With a sharp inhale she leaned up slightly, attempting to bring herself up on her elbows, bristling when her fiery skin made contact with the cotton sheets beneath her.

It didn't make any sense, why the hell was she so weak? She attempted to do a small chakra probe but found her reserves ridiculously low, and what was left didn't seem to want to form to do anything of worth. Even so, low chakra would be a very reasonable explanation as to why she had absolutely no energy. Combine that with some unknown sedative and well that made all of the sense in the world.

_'Wonderful...I'm trapped, I'm in pain, I've been drugged, I have no chakra and I'm pregnant. I couldn't be more useless if they had lopped off all my limbs and tossed me on a bicycle.'_

Before she could further attempt to diagnose herself in the dark, a shuffling noise outside of the room made her freeze and a blinding light penetrated the darkness for a split second as a door opened and then quickly shut.

"Haruno-san? Are you awake?"

The voice was female and soft, completely throwing her expectations to the wind about what was coming through that door. Visions of monsters and terrible things had clouded her mind and made the resulting intrusion surreal.

"W-where am I?" Her voice was beyond hoarse and her throat burned with disuse and something else. Soft, gentle footsteps came closer until she felt the bed dip slightly as the woman sat somewhere near her legs. A few seconds later she heard a click and immediately shut her eyes as the room was flooded in a dim light. A lamp.

"You're safe for now, I can assure you that. How are you feeling?"

"Like absolute shit. Who the hell are you?" She hadn't meant it to come out that way but she couldn't blame herself. Waking up in an unknown place with their skin on fire and doped up from whatever would do that to even the nicest of people. Slowly she opened her eyes, letting them adjust before they came to rest on the woman perched on the bed beside her. She was quite pretty, in a somber kind of way. Cobalt hair shone in the yellow light and she had a stud beneath her bottom lip. Sakura had never been one for piercings herself, but it was very pretty on this woman. It suited her. She was dressed simply, black mesh under armor beneath a white tank top and standard issue shinobi pants gave off the impression that she was a simple servant to the cause. However, Sakura felt as if she were much more than that.

"My name is Konan. To answer your question from before, as I said, you are safe. You are within the confines of our headquarters."

Konan shifted to allow Sakura to sit up further before continuing, "Our leader has requested a quick meeting with you, but I'd think you'd rather eat something first. You've had a long trip." As if on cue, sparing Sakura no embarrassment, her stomach growled loudly and she blushed slightly. She was hungry...

"Well," Konan clapped her hands together, "I'll see to some food, and perhaps some clean clothes. When I get back we can discuss a few things and then we'll go and see Leader-sama."

"Y-yes... Thank you." An odd sort of numbness had taken its hold on her, leaving her confused and ultimately not in the state of panic that she should have been feeling. What was wrong with her? Just because this lady was pleasant and kind to her did not mean that she should just sit back and allow herself to be kidnapped!

She had been kidnapped right?

As Konan made her swift departure, Sakura sighed and collapsed back onto the pillows, deciding to take stock of her surroundings to keep her mind from going to darker places. Her head still hurt but it had dulled to a softer thrum and she was thankful. The room was plain and judging by the thin layer of dust on everything untouched, it hadn't been lived in in some time. There weren't any personal effects, so she just supposed that it was an extra room in the building. The walls were painted a deep shade of grey and the curtains that she had thought to be black were instead a lovely, rich crimson. There was another door on the opposite side of the full size bed, and she deduced that it was either a bathroom or a closet. The blanket she was covered in was a color similar to that of the curtains, and was lush, a nice micro-suede fabric lined in soft cotton. The sheets were black. There wasn't much in the way of furniture, a dark wooden desk sat in front of the window and an accompanying dresser stood next to the closet/bathroom door. The dark walls were bare, but there was a lone nightstand to her right, in the same wood as the dresser and desk. With the exception of the wood, which was a dark brown, everything else was either red, grey or black. Something about the color scheme struck an unusual chord in her, but she couldn't figure out why. Come to think of it, there was something familiar about the woman from before, like she had seen a picture of her somewhere once but she couldn't recall where offhand.

Suddenly, a burning overwhelming need made itself known in her bladder and she wanted to get up and see if maybe that door led to a bathroom after all, but she didn't trust her weak legs to support her. Honestly, just the simple act of sitting up made her tired, and she felt her eyes get heavier the longer she sat there. The urge to lie back down and rest for a few minutes was overwhelming the urge she had to attempt to break through the window and run and find help.

Somehow, she had the feeling that attempting an escape would not be her best course of action, at least not at that point.

But, it couldn't hurt to see if she could stand on her own right? With more effort than she would have thought, she slid her legs over the side of the bed, grunting to get an even footing on the cold, stone ground before she slowly lifted herself up, using the wall as support.

"At least I'm not paralyzed..." That might have been the case but standing was really taking it out of her. She really had to pee though...

No, she'd make this happen. Her first step was uneven and wobbly and caused her to almost collapse back in the bed but once she gained her footing and made a few more baby steps toward the door, a bit of energy returned and walking became much easier. It seemed like a century had passed when she finally made it to the door, and she slowly opened it, revealing it to be, to her dismay, a closet. An empty closet.

Damn, well now what was she going to do? She should have just sat back down in the bed and waited for Konan to return, surely she'd take her to the bathroom, but it was taking an abnormally long time for her to get back. She decided that she would wait for the woman, but that surely it wouldn't hurt to just peer out the door and see what was taking so long right?

Her legs were still weak but they were much stronger than before so it only took a minute to get to the door that Konan had left through. She placed her hand on the doorknob for what seemed like several moments before she slowly turned it, thankful for the lack of clicks and creaks it made. She waited a minute before cracking the door open and peered out into a dimly lit, seemingly empty hall. She looked to the left and the right, noting a few wall sconces set between a long wall of doors just like hers.

When she heard heavy footfalls coming her way, her first instinct was to immediately shut the door and run back to the bed, like a child who had been caught sneaking a peak at Christmas presents in their parents' closet, but she stayed put.

At first she could only see a pair of shinobi sandals beneath the swish of a black cloak, but as she watched quietly she saw much more than that.

Bright red clouds lined in white adorned the bottom of the cloak, and her stomach sunk as her worst fear had been affirmed. She was, she knew now certainly, currently in an Akatsuki base, whereabouts unknown. Now she could remember where she had seen the Konan woman before, in the Bingo book, and she was also listed as a member of the infamously evil organization. She resisted the urge to shut the door and go back to the bed, knowing without a doubt that escape from these people, even if she had been able, was ultimately futile, and stayed put to see the rest of whoever was coming down the hall. Green eyes followed the swish of the cloak up, up, up until they landed on the chiseled jaw line of a face that was all too familiar to her. As he walked past, he caught sight of her, and she froze, unable to do anything but gawk like an idiot. He didn't stop, didn't acknowledge that he had seen her, but his nacreous eyes never left hers, locking in on like some kind of laser beam, keeping her in his sights, paralyzing her to feel nothing but glued to the spot. His eyes furrowed slightly as he moved closer, and hers followed suit. Surely he wouldn't recognize her, right? Something decidedly unusual fluttered within her stomach but she didn't move until he was gone, having turned the corner, his dark-sharply styled hair shining in a way that was altogether unsettling and intriguing before he disappeared from her view.

With the shakiest hands she had ever had in her life, she shut the door as quietly as she could manage and numbly walked back to the bed, collapsing onto it. Every ounce of energy she had been trying to get back was now lost, and she could feel her emotions colliding towards a break. She had tried so hard to forget his existence, wanted to make a life for her child that had nothing to do with him and now she was trapped in his zone. Her bottom lip began to tremble before she could stop it and soon the tears came flowing like rain. A deep sadness filled her chest and her throat became so swollen that she could barely swallow her sorrow. What was going to happen to her? Did they know about the baby? Is that why she had been taken? Or was she simply an unknown pawn in a game they were playing to acquire Naruto for the nine tails?

She feared the ultimate worst, that either he or his leader (or both) knew about her and the baby and she had been brought here to ensure that this child would never see the light beyond it's mother's womb.

She wiped her eyes and bit her lip; they wouldn't kill her child as long as she could help it. She'd be damned if she let those bastards hurt this baby, especially him. He was the biggest bastard of them all. As soon as she could, she'd get out of here but right now she was in no shape to fend off a whole group of the biggest criminals known to the shinobi world. For now, all she could do was sit and wait and pray that they had no intent to hurt her baby, or that Naruto wasn't stupid enough to go running off to save her and fall in their potential trap.

And, more than anything else, she would stay away from Hoshigaki Kisame at all costs, because any interaction with him could mean the end of her and her offspring.

She just hoped he planned on avoiding her as well.


End file.
